Ratty wrote on Jul 29, 2012, 17:16:I stopped caring about the Olympics years ago when the signal to noise ratio dropped to near worthless levels. In the US you have to tolerate commercials every 8 minutes or less. Plus they only show a tiny handful of competitions for their "favorite" athletes and when everyone else is competing they fill the time with their fawning smarmy bios of the "scrappy underdog" succeeding in the face of adversity, or whatever will touch our heartstrings. Too bad. I used to love watching the Olympics.

If you only watch NBC's "prime time" show, then yes, that's all you're seeing. That show lasts four hours (3 if you exclude the commercials), and in that three hours they show you the entire day's worth of highlights. They reckon that people would rather see Phelps vs Lochte than some Bulgarian women winning the Equestrian cross country. (and, sadly, they think that everyone just LUUURVES 'human interest' stories, or that old bitch walking London telling everyone just how fucking fantastic London is.)

However, NBC is airing the Olympics on six channels for about 12 hours straight, and their online streams simply show EVERYTHING. So your comment is rather off the mark.

Julio wrote on Jul 30, 2012, 06:22:When there's a virtual monopoly on ISPs, there's no way they'll spend the money to improve the service.

Yeah, talk to the Liberals on that one and their desire to "protect canadian industry" sorry I mean "screw us all in the face" back when they imposed the business ownership rules. At least since I'm on teksavvy, I get the same speeds, 300GB/mo, and pay the same price as I would on rogers. If I blew through that I could get actual unlimited at 28/1 for less than what rogers charges for 28/1 with a 120gb(or is 150GB cap).

--"For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong." --H.L. Mencken

No, but from what I read it seems to be truly awful indeed. Only thing that bugs me about the Olympia coverage is that things happen simultaneous so if you miss something you are out of luck or have to luck for illegal sources ;p

But advertising? How could there be advertising! Nobody is allowed to inject their own advertising into Olympic live coverage here. So literally, 0 advertising in the live streams or main-tv coverage.

Ratty wrote on Jul 29, 2012, 17:16:I stopped caring about the Olympics years ago when the signal to noise ratio dropped to near worthless levels. In the US you have to tolerate commercials every 8 minutes or less. Plus they only show a tiny handful of competitions for their "favorite" athletes and when everyone else is competing they fill the time with their fawning smarmy bios of the "scrappy underdog" succeeding in the face of adversity, or whatever will touch our heartstrings. Too bad. I used to love watching the Olympics.

You just described every professional televised sport. You can just socket 'football' for Olympics there and it's as accurate for most of the population...

Just saying.

I don't see how when the NFL is clearly the most popular sport in the US and a major share in other markets. It's still growing too. I'm not much of a sports guy all around, but goddamn I love football!

“That's it. You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!”

eRe4s3r wrote on Jul 29, 2012, 19:13:In Germany we can watch the Olympics in a multi-channel life-stream official station web-site .. nearly half a dozen concurrent live streams ! Of nearly all events. on ARD or ZDF

And yes, with 0 Advertising! for free! This is one of the few things that make Germany great. We can watch international sport events on FREE TV and if its on the "public sponsored TV" (via GEZ fee) it can be watched via internet live-streams. And in case of olympics, with major simultaneous coverage of nearly every event.

This is the few perks we Germans have... and we pay GEZ for that...

Just curious. Have you ever had a chance to see any US coverage of the Olympics on NBC? You know, just to see how truly awful it is?

So they can livestream the Super Bowl and Stanley Cup Finals for free but if I want to watch livestreams of Olympic events that I actually care about I have to subscribe to cable or wait and hope against hope that some schmuck at NBC decides it's worth putting on broadcast TV many hours after I know who won what. Glad the network that the IOC gave exclusive rights to for eternity has such a solid online plan in the internet age.

Ratty wrote on Jul 29, 2012, 17:16:I stopped caring about the Olympics years ago when the signal to noise ratio dropped to near worthless levels. In the US you have to tolerate commercials every 8 minutes or less. Plus they only show a tiny handful of competitions for their "favorite" athletes and when everyone else is competing they fill the time with their fawning smarmy bios of the "scrappy underdog" succeeding in the face of adversity, or whatever will touch our heartstrings. Too bad. I used to love watching the Olympics.

You just described every professional televised sport. You can just socket 'football' for Olympics there and it's as accurate for most of the population...

Ratty wrote on Jul 29, 2012, 17:16:I stopped caring about the Olympics years ago when the signal to noise ratio dropped to near worthless levels. In the US you have to tolerate commercials every 8 minutes or less. Plus they only show a tiny handful of competitions for their "favorite" athletes and when everyone else is competing they fill the time with their fawning smarmy bios of the "scrappy underdog" succeeding in the face of adversity, or whatever will touch our heartstrings. Too bad. I used to love watching the Olympics.

Well said, sir, and right on the money. Well, that's what the Olympics are really about now, right? I've seen a lot of stories that seem to be growing in the media how these Olympics - much like Beijing - are really for the elites at this point and it's pissing most of the "small people" off. I know we've bid on the Olympics before and if we ever do again - which I'm sure we will - I will be very vocally opposed to it - or just end up moving.

“That's it. You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!”

In Germany we can watch the Olympics in a multi-channel life-stream official station web-site .. nearly half a dozen concurrent live streams ! Of nearly all events. on ARD or ZDF

And yes, with 0 Advertising! for free! This is one of the few things that make Germany great. We can watch international sport events on FREE TV and if its on the "public sponsored TV" (via GEZ fee) it can be watched via internet live-streams. And in case of olympics, with major simultaneous coverage of nearly every event.

I stopped caring about the Olympics years ago when the signal to noise ratio dropped to near worthless levels. In the US you have to tolerate commercials every 8 minutes or less. Plus they only show a tiny handful of competitions for their "favorite" athletes and when everyone else is competing they fill the time with their fawning smarmy bios of the "scrappy underdog" succeeding in the face of adversity, or whatever will touch our heartstrings. Too bad. I used to love watching the Olympics.